Greasers and the SOC

Due in large part to my fear of potential issues with social media in the classroom I haven't made use of it in class - this is also a consequence of our administrations decision to "block" all Social Media sites. I do believe this is a problem - the Education Council says that teachers need to 'model good Social Media" use but the fear of ethical missteps holds us back.

However, I do use Social Media a lot to guide my professional development. I follow a number of educators on Twitter, and make extensive use of Google+ as part of the mindlab programme. I also am a member of numerous education groups on Facebook which can prove invaluable in finding resources and discussing with other teachers. 

I can see the benefit in using Social media in the clasroom , as Seaman & Tinti-Kane(2013) report "Social technologies can provide new opportunities to engage learners and many educators are discovering impactful strategies for using them in face-to-face, blended and online classrooms." I believe it is important to let students access their work as easily as possible and sites like Facebook etc provie a shortcut to connectivity beyond the standard tools used in class.

However, there are many drawbacks to using social media. It is well known that Facebook can be extremely distracting - leading to students logging in to do their work, then getting distracted and doing nothing of educational value.

It also opens the door to bullying and issues of privacy. 

I think at this point in time, sites like facebook etc should remain as seperate domains from the teacher/student relationship.

Importantly though, Social media can serve as a great tool in building professional development. I have lost track of the number of resources I have shared and received thanks to social media group. The ability to communicate with teachers across New Zealand and the globe is invaluable - just the other day I interacted with an innovator in the field of English teaching insert tweet here

Melhuish (2013) describes the resource sharing I refer to above as potentially "low-level and not necessarily supportive of enhancing practice." He says this because teachers may just rely on resources and never develop them further. However in my experience there has been lots of collaboration - particularly in a shared google drive that was created to share resources for a film.

I do wonder if these groups provide only a surface level network as opposed to the value gained from face to face networking - but even a surface level network which spans the globe is a valuable one for development as teachers.

References:

NZ Education Council. (n.d.). What is social media . Retrieved June 16, 2017 from http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/what-social-me...

Education Council (2017). Guide to Teachers and Social media. Retrieved from: https://www.educationcouncil.org.nz/content/teachers-and-social-media

Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Babson Survey Research Group. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-2013-report.pdf